@worm
you do realize that you literally just made @Januari 's point...right?

and i get it...government spending BAD.
government can't do anything blah blah blah...gotcha.

but instead of using the VA as an example of government malfeasance and incompetence,why not use medicare/medicaid?

the VA is run by the DoD and considering that during rumsfelds tenure they lost over a trillion american dollars..POOF..where is that money? nope..can't find it.the pentagon is a mess.

medicare/medicaid is run by the dept of health,which runs on a 3% overhead,has the ability to negotiate with pharmacuticals,and is a system that is already in place AND we all already pay in to.

see,
i am not a fan of obamacare.
i think single payer is the way to go,and the only way to go.
people like to make the comparison of obamacare insurance with car insurance.
forgetting that driving is a privilege...
breathing is not.

so if we take the "profit motive" out of health care.then the majority of people NOT covered would not wait until something dire or life threatening was going down with them to head to the doctor.preventive care has been shown to reduce medical costs dramatically.
see:norway
see:denmark
see:france
see:britain

while i understand many liberals defense of obamacare,i see it only a half measure that can easily be remanded and/or gotten rid of all together.however unlikely that may be.the threat will be enough.

people forget that obamacare was basically written by the heritage foundation in 1992.a right wing think tank and not much was changed (though the pre-existing clause was a positive).

they forget that then Governor mitt romney implemented a similar health care system in massechusetts.which saw steady increases in premiums yearly.

and here is the thing that really eats at me.
it is mandatory.

so here is my prediction:
obamacare is not going anywhere.
while it may be used as apolitical football and health insurance companies will use (and already HAVE used) the threat of leaving due to little or no money (this is a lie) in order to force the government to raise their subsidies.

this is corporate welfare on a scale that over-shadows the bank bailouts of 2007.which at final tally was over 17 trillion.

so obamacare is going nowhere because it is the goose that lays the golden egg,and the gift that keeps on giving.

oh there will threats,and over-politicizing,and wringing of hands,and committee meetings.

but that will be just for show.
we put the fox in charge of the henhouse,and the fox is gonna make damn sure it is going nowhere.

@ChaosEngine
agreed.
context matters and i think being a decent human being plays a large role in that dynamic.

people tend to attempt to break down complex ideas and/or ideologies into more easily digestible morsels.this "twitter speak",in my opinion,is largely responsible for the decay of human interactions.

we all are biased.
we all hold prejudices,and preconceptions based on our learned experiences.
which are subjective.

we see the world through the lens of our own subjectivity and even the most open minded and non-judgemental person,when trying to sympathize/empathize with another person, will use their own subjective understandings in order to understand that person.

this tactic,which we all employ,will almost always fall short of true understanding.

so we rely on words,metaphors,allegory etc etc in order to communicate fairly complex emotions and experiences.

what brendon o'neill is pointing out,is that when we start to restrict words as acceptable and unacceptable,we infantilize our interactions.

words are inert.
they are simply symbols representing a thing,action or emotion.
it is WE who apply the deeper meanings by way of our subjective lens.

i am not trying to make something simple complicated,but bear with me.
a rock will always be a rock,but a cunt has a totally different meaning here in the states than in britain.(love you brits,and cunt is a brilliant word).

the problems of culture,region,nationality or race all play a role in not only how we communicate but how that communication is received ...and interpreted.

so misunderstandings can happen quite easily,and then when we consider that the persons intent is by far the greatest metric to judge the veracity of the words being spoken,and just how difficult it is to discern that intent....this is where nuance and context play such a major role,but we need to have as many tools in our language box to express oftentimes very difficult concepts,multi-layered emotions and complicated ideologies.

and,unfortunately,there are attempts to legislate speech.

of course well intentioned,and reasonable sounding,but like any legislation dealing with the subjective nature of humans,has the possibility of abuse.

case in point:http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-no-its-not-about-criminalizing-pronoun-misuse/

a new canadian addendum to their human rights statute.on the surface this is a fairly benign addition to canadas already existing human rights laws,but there is the possibility of abuse.

a psychology professor from university of toronto was critical of this new addendum,and has created a flurry of controversy in regards to his criticism.

which you can check out here:
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/301661-this-canadian-prof-defied-sjw-on-gender-pronouns-and-has-a

now he was protested,received death threats,there was even violence and a new internet star was born affectionately labeled "smugglypuff".

see:http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/smugglypuff

i agree that free speech cannot be viewed with an absolutist mindset.absolutist thinking leads to stagnation and a self-righteous fundamentalism,so we NEED the free flow of ideas...even BAD ideas..even offensive and racist..because this brings all those feelings/thoughts/ideologies into the market of ideas to be either absorbed or ridiculed and ultimately ostracized for the shit philosophy they represent.

i WANT to know who the racists are.
i want to know who is bigoted or prejudiced.
i want to know who is holding on to stupid ideas,or promoting fascism dressed up as nationalistic pride.

and the only way to shine a light on these horrendous and detrimental ideas is to allow those who hold them openly state who and what they are...so we can criticize/challenge and in some cases..ridicule.

we should be free to say whatever we wish,but we are not free from challenge or criticism.
we can say whatever pops into our pretty little head,but we are not free from consequences.
we are also not free from offense.

i know this is long,and i hope you stayed with me,and if you did,thanks man.i know i tend to ramble.

but we can use the banning of gorillaman as a small microcosm of what we are talking about here.

i felt that we,as a community,could take gorilla to task for his poor choice in verbiage "nigger prince" and i attempted to make the case by using his history,dark humor and bad taste to add context to his poor choice of wording.

bareboards felt it was a matter for the administrators to deal with.i am not saying her choice was wrong.just that we approached the problem from different perspectives.

now gorilla decided to become the human torch and flame out.which threw my approach right out the window.

but the point i am making in that case,is that bad ideas,bad philosophies,bigotry and racism will ALWAYS reveal themselves if we allow that process to ultimately expose bad ideas/shit person.

the free flow of ideas is the proverbial rope that ultimately hangs all shit ideas.

thanks for hanging kids.
love you all!

Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to Russia and a close friend of Julian Assange, has now confirmed that he knows the identity of the person who leaked the DNC and Podesta leaks to Wikileaks, and that this person is not Russian and has no connection to the Russian government.

On the contrary, he is a Washington insider.

Craig Murray has moreover told the Guardian that he has actually met with this person.

Anyone wanting to know more of what Craig Murray is saying should read his statement on his blog. Indeed it should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the truth of this affair.

http://theduran.com/uk-ambassador-craig-murray-ive-met-the-person-who-leaked-them-podesta-emails-not-russian-and-its-an-insider/

@newtboy

you said:
Call it what you will. To me, massive illegal immigration with the goal of territorial control is invasion...no matter why they invaded. Invaders always have a reason.
Hence my making the distinction between Arab and Jewish controlled Palestine. Officially the British were still ruling over Palestine, but in most practical ways, Palestine was already divided before the mass immigration started. There was essentially Jewish Palestine and Arab Palestine, and the normal conflicts between close neighbours with different religion were already significant before the illegal immigration. Of all the places for Jewish Europeans to flee to, the land already in the possession and control of welcoming Jewish Palestinians hardly stinks of invasion to me.

Sorry, I know I tried to refocus on what they should have done and immediately leapt off the rails myself.

You said:
should have fought the Nazis, not the mostly blameless (for the atrocities) Palestinians
A majority of them that made it into Britain and America did just that. In fact, so many fought against the Nazis that when the civil war in Palestine came to a head and WW2 veteran Jewish soldiers started showing up it's counted part of the Arab narrative as 'western' support and part of the unfair military advantage that made Israel the mighty power and the Arab league army the underdogs.

You said:
The U.S. was open...if they could get here.
No, nothing was open. As pictures of the camps spread, doors started opening but that was very much after the fact. Leading up to and during WW2 immigration numbers were very restricted to jewish people. There simply was absolutely no legal immigration option for thousands and thousands of Jewish Europeans.

You said:
neighbors and allies try to secure their borders that are being crossed by invaders
You misunderstand my statement on the Arab League member's intentions. They had NO intention of defending their neighbouring Arab Palestinian's land. Sure, publicly they declared a joint effort to liberate Palestine. Each member nation though was stating that as code for liberate a portion of Palestine by making it a part of themselves. Israel was able to take the best equipped and trained Jordanian army out of the battle without a single shot fired by agreeing with them to simply abandon the portion of Palestine that Jordan proceeded to make a part of itself. The other Arab states made similar bids militarily, refusing to co-ordinate their assaults because each wanted to declare the ground gained their own. As they each rushed their offensives and attacked individually Israel had the time to plant 100% of their forces in the path of each of them.

You asked:
Should I think you call Turkey an invader of Daesh, and you a supporter of Daesh?
In the sense that you are asking, it's a near yes. The original Syrian resistance is a group I really do support, and the Kurdish fighters have largely been on their same side and I support their efforts there as well. Daesh was much more interested in killing the 'legitimate' resistance than Assad and Putin's forces. Similarly, the Russians have made it a firm practice to exclusively attack the 'legitimate' resistance and doing their best to largely not bother attacking Daesh unless forced to. The main reason being that once Daesh is all that's left, the scorched earth fix becomes all the more easily justified, and the actual rebels pose a much more real and legitimate alternative to Assad's government than Daesh.

A lot of the clips of Spitfires in this are actually Hurricanes (the Spitfire is the one with the bubble canopy). Of course, they had the same engine in them with the same problem.

Great film, though, Battle of Britain. I understand a lot of the effects in it were inspirations for Star Wars (particularly the head on shot of a pilot in his cockpit which is starting to explode around him and then cut to the external shot of the model exploding).

ed: You don't actually see a Spitfire until 0:26 and the plane used as an example doing a roll is a Hurricane.

A fascinating look at the factors leading up to the Brexit. "Race-baiting, Nationalism, and Fear" Sounds familiar. Seems to be a common theme in semi-successful election campaigns. We in Canada voted against that kind of nonsense in our latest federal election, thankfully.

I wonder, though, if the Brexit will actually happen? Will UKIP win the election for leadership of the UK? Are the other parties interested in stewarding Britain through the exit? I ask partly because I don't really know and don't have much perspective on the whole matter and am interested in your opinions of it.

*lies

Britain did the right thing. Older people with age and wisdom voted to put control closer to the hands of the people.

And the Leftist media seeking globalism puts is best spin on it.

Also, this was a story in a mainstream UK paper today (the Sun). Reproducing it here because I wouldn't give the pricks another click:

WHERE THE BREX WAS WON Streets full of Polish shops, kids not speaking English… but Union Jacks now flying high again
People from Portsmouth, Plymouth and Boston revel in their relief at EU exit
BY BEN GRIFFITHS AND RYAN SABEY 26th June 2016, 2:11 am

VOTERS in Britain’s most Eurosceptic towns spoke of their relief at Brexit saying: “We’re elated.”

The anti-Brussels fervour was greatest in Boston where 75.6 per cent opted for Leave.

Single market too far … a corner shop in Boston, Lincolnshire
One in six of the Lincolnshire town’s 65,000 population are Eastern Europeans — the highest percentage in the UK.

Yesterday a buzz was back in its medieval centre where High Street stores are flanked by Polish and Lithuanian shops. Crosses of St George and Union Jack flags were adorning pubs and homes.

Caterer and mum-of-five Sally Shuttleworth, 58, said: “I’ve never been so elated as when I saw the Brexit result come in.

“Boston is an example of how Britain has lost its identity with all the Polish shops.

“We need tighter border controls. Immigrants are hard workers but there is too much pressure on the system, on schools, and hospitals.

“You could tell by the number of people streaming out of polling stations that the vote meant a lot to the town.”

In January the Boston area was named the most murderous place in England and Wales, with 15 cases per 100,000 people.

It also has the unwanted title of least integrated town in the UK.

Elation … Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, revealed: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.”
Translators are employed at Park Academy primary school where half the children speak Eastern European languages.

Retired agricultural mechanic Ron Holmes, 69, added: “I’m delighted. The whole town is.

“Whether you think the EU or immigration is right or wrong things have to stop in Boston.

“It is crippling the UK and we had to deal with it once and for all and vote out.

“The EU wasted money on so many things. They should have put the money in places like Latvia and Estonia to build them up so those people would not want to come here. We should never have joined the Common Market in 1975. I remember it well. Now we have finally put it right.”

Variety … the town of Boston has many shops and eateries catering for Polish tastes
Locals yesterday talked of celebratory parties, extra busy pubs and cheering in the streets.

There are around 1,200 people, mostly Brits, out of work in the town and many hope the result might see a change in fortunes.

Jobless Paul Cook, 53, said: “I don’t think people in the South realised how important this vote was to us.

“It is brilliant that we have voted out. We have had enough of the EU telling us what we can and cannot do. Not being able to control who comes in the country is a big problem. Now we can hopefully get a points system that will allow skilled people in.

“I’m hoping it will free up more roles for British-born people.”


There ya go. Racism is now acceptable in public discourse.

one of our tabliod paper's headline today was literally "now lets make Britain great again".

So yeah. Trumpism.

Hmm. I'm not sure Britain leaving the EU would have the effect you desire. Who is to say Germany won't simply double down? After all, if we leave it will have less to do with Greece being thrown under a bus, and more do with migrant camps in Calais.

Your video, Why You Can't Advertise Cancer Cures In Britain, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Britain Leaving the EU - For and Against, Good or Bad? has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

There just doesnt seem to be enough to be gained either by leaving or by staying in at this stage. A lose-lose situation.

Britain has avoided adopting Schengen rules and the Euro, so there is little it can complain about regarding the EU, really.

There is also little to cheer for, the Euro and Schengen area are not working as intended, rules are bent and broken at will, the "democratic" political process is at best incomprehensible, but apparently skewed toward unelected clerks applying social engineering solutions to imaginary problems.

Really leaving (not bindingly decided in this referendum) would lead to short term chaos and economic loss for both the EU and Britain. With what long term gains, exactly?

Democracy should be used to pick representatives who make responsible decisions, not to vote about what mood people are in on a given day.

The freeze frame at 2:12 says:

*the number changes depending on which source you're reading from, but it's roughly around that

Also, did you know:
"Britain" comes from the latin: "Britanus Denticus" - which translates as "realm of ecellent teeth and outstanding dentists". We have excellent dentistry in Britain. It's right up there with our world-famous cuisine and love of public speaking.

Shall we get back to the video?

Leave campaign comes across as very nationalist, even jingoist. I think immigration is an issue, but it has been badly overblown. It's all a bit too "Make Britain Great again" for my tastes.